More Reasons Not To "Blow Up" The Celtics

and this team will take it one step at a time. playoffs is a entirely different story, and i’m confident this team still has a chance to grab that championship. Go C’s!

“Maybe, just maybe, this team has one more run left in them.”

Don’t think so since we have to deal with the Bulls, Heat and Thunder of this world!

If we could get good value for KG, PP or Allen I’d be all for blowing the big three up now. If we can’t just play out the season and let DA make the most of the available capspace!

we’re also gonna lose a bunch in March.Gonna happen.Play it out with this group unless something unexpected pops up.If it does,great,otherwise wait till summer

Theoretically.

Well, ‘theoretically’ is good enough for me. All I need to know is that they have it in them… that they CAN be great. Now that I know that, all I want from our boys is to see them spend the rest of this regular season rounding into shape, and getting to the playoffs HEALTHY. After that, anything is possible.

“Blowing it up” was always more fantasy than reality. Fuhgetaboudit. These are our guys, and we’re climbing into the breach with them. And should they go all the way, should they march into battle and come out the other end victorious…. that will a story for the ages.

a few things happen, I guess I could roll with it, however…..
I need to see the C’s win, or come darn close tomorrow nite to convince me Monday wasn’t just a fluke! I also need to see, Doc using more or less the same rotation, i.e., giving ETM and Steimer some good minutes and not burying them back on the bench for the old vets who automatically get their spots back, even though they havn’t EARNED it.
The more pessimistic side of me still say we can’t beat the HEAT even ONE game, let alone a series, so what’s the use! Rebuild still calls to me, and I don’t see waiting the whole rest of the season to start, because of one game, makes sense!
Guess we’ll see tomorrow, playing the same team on the road.

I’ve said a couple times so far in these rebuilding posts that the best asset is the one we already own. We have enough capspace in the offseason to sign two max contract guys, why would you want to give up that?

This season with the guys we have can go either two ways. We start playing better basketball and can make an underdog run in the playoffs that could be fun to watch. Or we are stuck playing bad basketball and end up with a good pick in the draft.

At the end of the season, no matter which of those happens, you still have two max contracts you can sign, two draft picks, and a couple old players (Allen, and Garnett) who would probably sign cap-friendly deals to come off the bench, be a role player with the new team next year.

Say the Celtics make a big run in the playoffs. You can go pitch Dwight Howard on the fact that the team that (possibly just beat his team) in the playoffs could be the same team you could play with next year, except they would be coming off the bench and you would have another young max contract guy with you, with a young all-star PG, a chance to play for Doc Rivers. I wouldn’t count us out of the Dwight sweepstakes yet (even if it may be small)

What is it that you think we can do with all this “valuable” cap space?

Paying a little bit more for guys who would otherwise settle for the MLE is pretty much the definiton of a bad contract.

The Wizards are a bad example to use, as they just started their rebuilding last year, while the Thunder are in year 5 of Kevin Durant. Most of the teams who failed to rebuild properly were led by bad GM´s, which Danny isn´t.

Your whole argumentation is built on black and white, when there is a lot of grey in between. You sound as if everyone who is pro “blowing it up” wants us to trade for mediocre players on bad contracts.
The chance to get Howard is just as good as the chance to land the #1 pick, probably even smaller.

You don´t want to rebuild, but can´t propose proper alternatives, except for your “fallback plan” of taking overpaid guys on after we rode it out, which, in my opinion, is already the fallback plan for blowing it up.

Can´t you see that we´re headed for a disaster if that´s the only plan we´ve got?

I understand that with the new cap rules teams have to pay to a certain percentage of the cap. Correct? If so, does that force us to overpay or have the need to take on one of these overpaid players to meet this team payroll obligation? That could possibly be a fly in the ointment going forward if there is not a top player worthy of a max level deal. Maybe Roy could enlighten me on if that should be something to worry about.

Have you guys thought about this? After Kg and Ray come off the books they will still probably wanna retire as Celtics…imagine them on the bench..they can give us a meaningful 15-20 minutes…imagine going into the playoffs with that kind of experience behind a younger more athletic team…

We are incorporating about 9 new players into the team. The guys already under contract at the start of the season were not in game shape and Pierce never even had a training camp.
We’ve seen many players improve their games since the start of the season. We need to let this team continue to improve. When they’ve peaked, then consider changes. But, what changes will make this team better this year or next. Pierce, KG, Ray and Rondo all serve as mentors to younger players. Ray’s salary has already been cut in half. KG will probably resign for at least half (if he doesn’t decide to retire). I also doubt KG would go to another team. He’s already said he doesn’t want to play for another coach in another system. I’d guess if he did go to another team it would be Chicago because of Thibs. If we wait till the trade deadline to make moves, that usually turns out to be disastrous, especially this year because there’ll be less time for newcomers to adjust before the playoffs. We hear Danny say he will make moves to improve the team. He’s said that from day 1. That doesn’t mean he will make moves for the sake of making moves. Play out this season and do the work in the off-season. Many players are on one year minimum contracts. We may only have about 4 or 5 signed players when this season ends. Then re-evaluate and do what needs to be done. We will then have the money available if a player of worth can be gotten. I don’t see us getting anything of worth by making changes during this season, especially when KG and Ray are free agents after this season. In addition, this team is better than it has shown and all we need to do this year is get into the playoffs. Who knows what will happen then.

Agree wholeheartedly. I think Ainge, if he makes any move, would add a vet somehow, a tweak. It may not make everyone happy but that’s what I think he does.

I think the best teams ARE re-built through the draft with a final piece or two added in. Sure, the Greg Oden-Brandon Roy whammies can happen. We had our Len Bias-Reggie Lewis already. Running willy-nilly after bishops (as you well describe them) is how Ben Gordons, Baron Davis’, Rashard Lewis’ wind up on your roster. Joe Dumars was pretty highly regarded until those two bozo signings.
The Celtics should spend a lot of money on proprietary draft research. If they think they can read good research from the “get-a-lifers” that create draft websites and advisories and AAU coaches (Leo Papile comes to mind) who blab on about “wingspan” and “hops” they should think again. That is how you wind up with Andre Blatche, Derick Cousins type headaches.
Danny is good at drafting, but nobody is GREAT at drafting so there is room for improvement. And Tommy was right about what to do with young talent. Imagine if Wizards McGee had a dedicated big man coach. I have to give some props to Doc/Danny for showing the same patience with Bradley that they showed with Perk. He’s truly developing and he’s only 20.

Not arguing the overall idea of KG and RA as bench plyers, but we might have overlooked an issue. If we add some faster, more athletic wings/bigs to run with Rondo, and then have a slower, more methodical second unit, you have an odd problem. If injuries occur to one or two starters, you then are back to playing a style that is not fully one or the other. As a former coach, you want to play a style that is consistent with a philosophy for the TEAM. I’m not saying that simply adding a couple of younger guys will require a drastic ’change" in philosophy. You could split RA / PP at all times, so at least you have a ’creator" on the floor with at all times. However first and second units are not serarate entities, so those that want an uptempo offense need to realize that it might require letting RA / KG go.

based on if you think you have a shot at winning a championship-I don’t think we can so I would consider dealing KG and/or Ray.

I honestly don’t believe that it’s time to blow things up at all. I think we could use some tweaks, definitely, but don’t trade the Big 3. For one thing, unless we got a Dwight Howard type of player who would make an immediate impact, our chances for a banner this year wouldn’t be any greater without the Big 3 than with them. The new guy(s) would need time to learn our system and get acclimated, and as we saw last year, sometimes that can take a while.
Also, if we trade KG and/or Ray for guys with multi-year contracts, that means we have less cap space for the summer. If Ray and KG ride out their contracts, 31 million goes off the books and we have enough to sign a big name AND bring back KG and Ray, because I’m pretty sure that they would both come back for way less than what they’re earning now.
If KG and Ray weren’t in the last year of their contracts, I’d say, yeah, look to trade them. But I honestly believe that keeping them here for the season could benefit us more.

to speculate what he might do in the future. My guess is he never felt Jefferson was anything more than a trade chip. At that time in Celtic’s history PP was the player to build around and KG’s situation was an opportunity. Just like Chris Paul for Rondo etc. Ainge has shown us his hand.

Perkins was a trade chip…I think Green may be a trade chip…a better one than Perkins. Did Ainge improve the Celtics with Green? Perhaps if Green has a higher value in a deal.

The Perkins deal was the beginning of the blow up. Ainge doesn’t care what we think. The Chris Paul deal was the next step in the blow up….what’s next?

At this moment, everyone is potential chip to get more chips and better chips. Look at Danny’s history…he will rebuild through the draft, the only thing is the players he drafts he will trade for the players he needs.

Ainge thinks this ‘group" is done and he has shown us this through his actions. What are you smoking thinking that they can beat any of the top 5 teams in the league in the playoffs? Ainge threw out the white flag last year with the Perkins trade. He knew he couldn’t beat Miami…the Celtics are a business that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and Ainge is treating it that way.

The obvious near term danger is that this year’s team teases us and ends up mediocre – with a mediocre spot in the draft.

One could try to make a move to improve our near term, but I really just can’t see much out there that’s going to make an immediate near term (this season impact). Trading for the near term is very, very dangerous. Not only is it risky trying to integrate new talent mid-stream, but you can end up killing yourself down the road if you take on bad contracts or give up too much long term assets.

So I think we need to temper our near term expectations that no matter WHAT Danny does, this season is potentially aggravating and that our only shot for near term glory is if the current team manages to pull it together for one last run.

That begs the question of whether we should even worry about the near term and instead focus only on the future.

Longer term, again, all paths have their dangers. We could trade assets now, trying to turn our expiring contracts into players. The problem there is that there are not a lot of promising young stars that happen to be on bad contracts available to be traded to us. Mostly there are mediocre and bad players on bad contracts. Our best bet is with a 3-team deal where we end up not taking on long term salary and end up maybe with extra draft picks, but needing more teams in the mix decreases the odds of something happening. The right deal might mean we trade down for a pure youth movement which could mean a couple of painful years of rebuilding. You can build up assets through the draft but it is real hard to do a fast turnaround.

Alternatively we play it out and try to use our cap space. People talk about how we’ll have room for ‘two max contract guys’. That would be great. Except who? Love is off the table. D-Will is redundant with Rondo and before you say, “Yeah but then we could TRADE Rondo!” just stop for a second and recognize that exchanging Rondo for D-Will would mean devoting 7-9M more to the PG spot for virtually identical production. Rondo and Williams have been very, very close in win-share production since Rondo came in the league. Rondo actually has the edge over the last 3 years and he’s younger. And a lot cheaper. Unless you can think of a true stud C or PF that we can trade Rondo for, signing D-Will makes no sense. So that leaves Dwight as the remaining potential FA who is worthy, imho, of a ‘max contract’. If he makes it to free agency and could be convinced to come here, great. I don’t personally like Howard much, but that would be the ideal outcome.

But the risk is that he doesn’t come and we are, as some have pointed out, left with a ton of cap space and no kings to spend it on. The worst thing we could do is sign long term contracts for mediocre talent that uses all our space up and leaves us stuck in 48-win territory for a long time.

If that happens, I would advocate that we punt on one more year. Sign short contracts to survive until the NEXT FA season. That may mean resigning the current band – bring Ray & KG back for one last hurray. Use the two first-round picks either separately or together by trading up to get what you can and then use next year to develop those players. Then NEXT year we’d still have cap space to try for another max stud AND we’d have more assets to deal.

Gawd – the more I look at it, I see a high probability of having at least one year of pain. Maybe two.

OKC is frequently cited as the model team to do this. But…lets not forget, OKC was terrible enough to land 3 top 5 picks (Durant, Westbrook, Harden), and traded us Ray Allen for another one (Green). To build through the draft with a good probability of success, you need to get a few top 10 picks. That is to say, you have to be bad for a while. And even then, it could go badly, as blue chip prospects don’t always work out. The draft is a good way to build onto a good foundation, but unless you are terrible for a while, or happen to be terrible the year a great player comes out (Cleveland with LeBron…but we saw what happened to us in the Oden/Durant draft), its not the smartest move.

This is a very good thread article that spawned some of the best discussion we’ve had on this topic on CelticsBlog.

This is just a tough thing to do. In the good old days it was so much easier, especially if you had a shrewd GM. The rules were different. When Russ retired we went thru two bad years. Then we drafted a guy named Cowens and added players around him very quickly.
When Hondo retired there were 2 more bad years when the only players willing to play were Max and Cowens. Then a shrewd Gm drafted a guy named Bird who was in his third year of college and made it known that he wanted to finish college and would not play the year he was drafted. I think he was the 6th pick in that draft. When Bird did sign on Cowens decided to play another year and we got Tiny Archibauld and Pete Maravich and others to surround Bird. The next year that same shrewd GM traded his #1 pick for the #3 and a guy named Parrish. The #3 pick, ours, became a guy named Kevin. We were set for another ten years.

After that things fell apart with poor ownership, poor GM’s and new rules. With the rules that we have today I don’t think that shrewd GM from the past could have done the things he did. His disciple will have a much tougher job ahead of him.

So let’s just enjoy and savor what we have today. This team is better than it’s shown and some new bright spots have already emerged. Let’s just finish this season and see what we can do next off season. Maybe we can pick up a franchise player or two, but that’s probably not likely. I think patience will be the key.

if KG and Ray leave next year on their own? They are 2 of the best FAs on the market. Do we give them multiple years? If we get value now is that better than possibly nothing later?

I can’t agree. I don’t see that it’s in any way clear, at this point, that this team can’t compete in the playoffs. If ever these was a season, and a team, that we could expect to start slowly, gradually improve in the regular season and then reach a peak for the playoffs, this is that season and that team. The potential is clearly there… has been since 07. They’ve already shown that they can play a great game (albeit for the first time this season). I actually don’t understand how anyone could CONCLUDE, at this point, that this team is not going to compete this year. I don’t see that at all. I see the real possibility that they WILL compete, and even possibly go all the way. (Health permitting, of course.)

The most pessimistic thing I can say is that it looks pretty tough for the Cs this year. But impossible, or close to it? No way.